Imagine visiting the Ranthambore National Park or the Bandipur National Park and spotting a wild tiger with an ID tag hanging around its neck! The idea may seem fantastic, but it is not completely so. Just as every citizen of India is now in the process of getting the unique identification card (UID) called Aadhar, our national animal too will soon be recognised by a unique identification number given to each tiger in the country.
India is recognised all around the world as a tiger nation. Of the total number of tigers found globally, our country is home to half. But sadly, the 1,706 tigers in India are far fewer than the thousands that roamed the jungles about a decade ago. Human encroachment, poaching, recreational hunting and habitat loss are some of the perils this regal animal faces in its battle of survival. That is why the remaining tigers need all the help they can get to stay alive and protected from future perils that may entirely destroy their species.
Counting the stripes
The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has come up with the idea of allotting unique identification numbers to individual tigers, to aid in their protection.
The UIDs for tigers will have English alphabet codes that identify the zone based on the six geographical zones of the country where tigers are found, namely Central India, Eastern Ghats, north-east hills & Brahmaputra flood plains, Shivalik hills and Gangetic plains, Sunderbans, the Western Ghats. The card will also have a code of the tiger reserve they belong to.
For example, a tiger in the Bandipur National Park will have the code WG-BNP-1. While WG stands for Western Ghats (the geographical zone), BNP denotes the Bandipur National Park.
The codes have been deliberately assigned zone wise as tigers have the habit of roaming to and fro between inter-state corridors.
But how will the tigers be counted? Just like human finger prints, tigers too can be identified by the unique stripes on the body. However, for a big cat that loves to hide behind tall grasses, it is sometimes difficult to correctly identify a tiger, in spite of the one-of–a-kind pattern of yellow and black stripes. That is why instead of relying on human identification, thousands of camera trap images will be first used to identify individual tigers before alloting them with a unique number.
One must note that the UIDs are being given only to those tigers whose complete profile is present in the national database. This means a camera trap image that only captures a tiger’s face, tail and left profile will not be valid unless, the tiger’s left and right side images must be available to the data collectors.
How a UID can help
In 2012, 51 tigers were killed by poachers. Wildlife crime has become such a big problem in the world today that it is now considered as deadly as global terrorism. Therefore, the card allotted to each tiger can be an important tool to deter its human enemies that intend to kill the tiger for its body parts. If a tiger is killed by poachers, it will be immediately identified and additional protection will be provided in the areas where the poacher activity was seen.
The cards will help in tracking tigers that move from one state to another. In case of natural death too, it will be of great advantage to the officials to instantly recognise the demise of a big cat. Some experts believe that constant monitoring of tigers through the camera traps will help in declaring new areas tiger reserves where the tiger density is found to be increasing.
From just predators roaming Indian jungles to becoming an identified national pride, these big cats will get the recognition and protection they deserve through the ID cards.